JBR continued - the Holy Man Visit.
After finishing our drinks with the sun setting, we headed to our rooms for showers. We had booked to eat at the hotel tonight as we had free dinner vouchers to use, and tonight was Babi Galung night with traditional Balinese dancing. We had the best table incidentally, right at centre front! I don't eat pork and don't really eat much meat, chicken being the exception, so I happily dined on the noodles, vegies etc and some sate chicken whilst the others got stuck into the feast! The dancing was fantastic and we got some really excellent video footage given we had an uninterrupted view. We had a couple of drinks given that this was the only part of the dinner we were paying for and had a really pleasant night. Prior to going down to dinner Wayan had rang us telling us we were to go and see the holy man tonight. Given we had already booked the dinner we asked if it would be ok if we could see him tomorrow night, which it was, so this was what we had to look forward to the next night.
It's Wednesday 6th August and we are a few short days away from our trips end. Unfortunately K is sick. I give C my gastrolite and tell her to make sure he drinks this. He has been up on and off all night with the runs and vomiting. Hubby and I have our breakfast and headed down to the pool where we located prime loungers on the grassed area of the beachfront. I think maybe there had been a plane load leaving and arriving for the day around the pool was quite quiet. Normally it was teaming with Russians, but it seemed to be a lot quieter. We had an arrival of some more Aussies, which was nice to hear, and it was good to see the staff smiling and chatting to them. Unfortunately for the staff, the Russians don't speak English (or if they do it is limited) and they don't just sit and have a chat. The Balinese love having a chat, so for them it would be really hard to adjust to this new way of communication or should I say non-communication! C eventually arrives down and has left her mobile with K so that he can call us on my mobile if need be. We deduce that it is down to too much water inhalation from Waterbom Park, too much excitement in general, too much soft drink (given that he gets very hyper after soft drink and doesn't usually drink it at home) and too much food! K eventually makes his way down and we order him some watermelon pieces to eat slowly. He is looking a lot better than he was earlier.
Wayan eventually arrives late afternoon, so I head up to shower and hubby and Wayan follow shortly after. C & K call in to our room on their way out. They are off to do some shopping and grab some dinner whilst out. We head off towards Denpasar to visit with the holy man. We stop on the way at his sisters place where he borrows two sashes - one for me and one for Robert - and to collect an offering and some cigarettes for the holy man. The holy man loves this particular brand of cigarettes so Wayan always makes sure he buys them when he visits him.
Denpasar at evening is just amazingly hectic. It is really a sight to see. We arrive at some non-descript street, park and then travel down a darkened laneway. We eventually reach a gate with the number 6 on it (apparently the number 6 is a lucky number in Hindu eyes). We enter the gate and immediately to the right is a steep staircase. We head over to the open type house and Wayan calls out to a young girl there, they converse and she comes back to us with a sarong....Wayan had forgotten his sarong!! He ties the sashes around us and puts his sarong on and we take off our shoes and head up the steep staircase. At the top is like a bale immediately in front and to the left of the staircase is a large mat in front of the temple. We are not the first here, there are two people in front of us. There is one man on the mat in the bale (he is the one currently being received by the holy man) and two girls on the large 'waiting area' mat, which is where we sit. The holy man is in his temple finishing off his ritual, and his wife is sitting to the side of the bale and greets Wayan. Wayan advises that she thought we were coming last night, so he explained to her that we had already plans for the previous night. I enquired as to whether in their religion their priests could be married and he advised that if they were married before they were called to become priests that it was ok. That was the case with this holy man. The holy man came out of his temple saw us sitting there, gave us a big smile and returned his attention to his current patient (so to speak). After a short while, the blessings started and the man moved to one side once the blessing ritual was complete. The two girls then took their place on the large mat in the bale. The wife disappeared downstairs and came back a short time later with some aqua bottles for hubby, Wayan and I which I thought was really nice. The mozzies were out in force given that we were in the open air and I could see hubby getting tense with these little pests buzzing around him. Unfortunately for hubby he is a target to the mosquito - they love him - whereas they don't like me! I told hubby not to worry about them as there is nothing we can do! After about half an hour the holy man finishes with the girls and they leave. The first man is still there and Wayan advises us he will stay till the end as he wants to finish talking to the holy man.
It is our turn! I must say I felt and still do feel as I type this in awe. The warm feeling we received when we arrived continued throughout our stay. The holy man radiated such a kindness and happiness and wisdom that one could not begin to put into words. I was nervous but to the same token I knew that there was nothing to be nervous of. I was there as a participant and an observer. I had struggled with the whole thing given that I am a Catholic but to the same token, whilst I was there I realised that being there did not take away from my faith in my religion nor it did not make me a non-believer and I was not worshipping another God, no for me I was there with the view that I would like to experience what I was about to experience with an open mind.
We stayed in our spot and he faced us. He smiled a very big smile and in very broken English greeted us with a warm welcome and an enquiry into our health and as to where we had come from. That was the limit of his English but he was so proud, as were we, that we had communicated that between us. He enquired as to why we were there and Wayan turned to me and said, you may now tell him why you are here. So I said to Wayan, you know why we are here Wayan, can you please be our spokesperson. My question in case you haven't guessed would be what we need to do to have a family, and if we will be lucky enough to have a family. Wayan immediately began to speak to the holy man and with much nodding and carrying on between them and lots of glances towards us, with reassuring smiles, the holy man asked for our full names, this being the full names we were baptised with. We wrote down our names and he immediately got to work. A few more enquiries here and there and before long he was done with our names and started to speak. He told Wayan that combined we were a number 9 and that I was very hot in my womb area, which was not the best. He then told Wayan that I have a blockage, he said the blockage is pretty bad but that it might still be able to be saved. He told Wayan that the blockage was on my right side. He then drew a diagram of my fallopian tubes and blacked out the right side. Wayan translated all of this to us and the holy man passed over the diagram. Hubby and I were totally shocked. I still get goosebumps thinking about it. The truth is that I do have a blocked right tube - and have had known about this since I had a twin ectopic pregnancy in 2005. This was one of the reasons I was having surgery as it appears to be a bit 'unhappy' and so my specialist was going to remove it given that it is useless anyway. How the heck did this guy know that? I cannot fathom this at all. Wayan didn't know about it so I know that he couldn't have told him. It was just one of those amazing moments that you can only just sit there and go 'what the??' I eventually redeemed myself enough to speak, and advised Wayan that the holy man was right, I do have a blocked right tube and that I was going for surgery to have it removed in a couple of weeks. Wayan related this to the holy man and he smiled and nodded, not shocked at all that he had nailed it! The holy man said we needed to take these two different types of honey, a tablespoon each night for 3 months and that this would unblock my tube. One of the honey types is your normal honey bee but the other is from a small black bee and it is almost impossible to find this type of honey. Wayan said he would do what he could to get us the honey. We were then asked if there was anything else we wanted to ask and so I enquired as to whether we would build our house on our new coastal block down the deep south of WA and move their in the near future. The holy man asked for hubbys birth date and advised that we need to start building our house on a Sunday, this would start us on the 5 strands of happiness and wealth. He told hubby he would be in the same line of business for a while but once we started to build our house on a Sunday that everything would change and hubby would progress forward as would we with our lives. He then looked at hubbys left hand and showed hubby the 5 strands he was talking about. Again amazing considering that he hadn't looked at hubbys hand until then.
I was overwhelmed by now, and in our animated discussion, more people had arrived to see the holy man, so it was time that we left. The holy man returned to his temple, prayed, and then came out and blessed us. First he blessed us by sprinkling holy water over us, we then cupped our hands and he poured holy water in them for us to drink (which we did three times) and on the fourth time we washed our face and hair with the water. He then gave us some rice and a flower in our hand. The flower we put in our hair and the rice we put on our forehead and on our chest (just below the neck). He then smiled at us. We thanked him profusely and he shook hubbys hand, and then turned to me, shook my hand, winked at me and gave me a huge smile as if to say, everything will be ok. I felt so at peace. Even hubby noticed the exchange and what can only be described as a moment had passed between us.
We took leave and floated down the stairs, put our shoes on, Wayan returned the sarong and off we went. It was truly the most amazing experience. We stopped off at an apotik and retrieved the easy find honey but the black bee honey remained elusive. We tried 3 different apotiks in Denapasar before admitting defeat and deciding to head back towards the hotel and something to eat. Wayan took the challenge on board to find the honey for me the next day (my birthday). We arrived back at Tuban and it was 10pm, so we stopped in at Stadium for a bite to eat and then headed back to the hotel, our heads full of what had happened. We just couldn't believe our experience.
C called us to see how it went and we briefly sketched what had happened but didn't go into detail because we wanted to absorb it ourselves without the questions. The clock reached midnight and hubby turned to me and wished me a Happy Birthday and with that, it was lights out and we both fell into a peaceful sleep.
More to come...